Canvas
by smoak is smokin
Summary: Tony Stark's made a list. A list of his soul mates, that is. / Or, soul-mates!verse, all of the pairings are on my ao3, spans all of marvel
1. Avengers

Tony Stark's made a list. A list of his soul mates, that is. However! He's made a _list_,_ dammit_, and only two names (okay, initials) are crossed off. Two! He's in his fucking forties, and of seven different marks, he's crossed off _fucking two_.

He's crossed of the bright red and cursive '**I just pepper sprayed your guards and you messed up, so you must be having an off day, huh? - VP**' that went around the span of his waist and was, luckily, only glaringly obvious when he was naked. **VP** happens to be Pepper, aptly named. So far, and he only says that because there are _five other marks_ on him when he and Pepper finally get together, she's his only "non-platie," as is the terminology.

("Platie," meaning "platonic," meaning "I am not sexually attracted to you - or, maybe I am, but it's not going to manifest." Tony says it because the alternative is discriminating and shaming and disgusting and if you use the word, _you are fired_!)

And, of course, he's crossed off the gray-and-outlined-by-black, slanted print, '**Don't let those asses get to you, man. - JR**' that wound around his wrist like a beacon, even in it's muted color. That one was all Rhody, who was the first platie of his whole crew.

The other five - and _oh my god, _FIVE_?!_ - are stupid and confusing and make his head hurt. Here they are, in order, too.

There's a steel-gray and bright red **I have been told you are very smart! Is this true? - TO **in giant, block letters on his stomach. Been there since he was born.

There's the blue and white **I get that you don't like me, but I need somewhere to sleep. - SR **in sloppy cursive that has always unsettled him, right on his left shoulder. Mom said it was the first one he'd had, and that it had excited Howard right out of his lab.

**You're not scared? - BB **was on his right pinkie - in a garish green that looked toxic. It had showed up the day after he'd been born. Tony had always wondered if that particular soul mate had been a day after him or it was just late somehow. BB and SR have him paranoid of everyone, pretty much, as he grows. Well, paranoid's not the best word. He already knows that whatever it is that makes BB think he'll be scared isn't going to scare him in any way, shape or form, but still! A soul mate's gotta look out for shit like that!

SR freaks him out though - Tony knows that he'd never leave a homeless (and SR has to be homeless, if he's asking for a place to stay) guy without something, much less a soul mate, so why does it seem like he's going to say no?

However, as much as BB and SR rattled him, TO and NR (**Pleasure, Mr. Stark. - NR**, going up his left middle finger since birth, in blood-red and black-as-the-night-black, girly print, no less) make him feel like he's going to accomplish something in life.

Can you believe that **Yeah, w****ow, hi, fuck you, sir! - CB **(purple and black and a tramp stamp, even though the font was anything but provocative)showed up before he even turned three years old? **Fuck** was blurred out until he was sixteen, though.

Then, Rhody's (see above) came around the next day, even though Rhody is older. (_Sometimes_, Mom says to a two-years-old him,_ the marks come late or early, sometimes without initials, sometimes never. There are people whose marks show up after their soul mate has already said their words._)

Pepper's comes when he's opening up a birthday present. On his fifth birthday, that is.

Around his ankle, there's one that says **Woah! You're fucking Tony Stark! - DL**. That one shows up when he's twenty-goddamn-three and is hung over. The mark it's self is a multitude of muted colors, and is written by hand, rather than font. The assistant he has at that point is all too excited, and she's never seen in the halls of Stark Industries again.

* * *

Steve Rogers is born different. He's small, he's color blind, he's nearsighted, he's allergic to allergy medicine and he's got heart problems up to his ears. _However_!

He has four marks - which is unheard of in a world of one's and two's, with the occasional zero's and three's.

To make matters worse, he was born with all of them, so he's younger than all four of his soul mates. Well, he thinks he is.

His stomach is littered with them - **What are you waiting for! - PC** (navy blue and tan, slanting left instead of right), **Those boys like to rough up ever'one. You alright? - JB **(completely black and in rough Irish), **I have heard much of your work, Captain! I am honored to work with thee! - TO **(bright red and cloudy gray, with bold lettering) and **Hey, pal. -HS **(fire-red and brown, jotted quickly, from a hand).

(Another oddity? Steve's got two non-Platies. JB and PC.)

(Yes, you read that right. Steve Rogers, with heart palpitations and squinty eyes, is red-faced for _everyone_!)

As he's by his Ma's deathbed at the tender age of ten - as if his life hasn't already been less than perfect - another one shows up, this time on his palm, in curling blood-red (and he is too well acquainted with _blood-red_) cursive. **Did he fanboy? - NR**, it reads. He decides his life is getting dangerously close to that of those he pities and it's all because _what does 'fanboy' even mean? ? ?_

(_At least you get to be older than this one_, his brain supplies him just as his mother flatlines. Yeah, Steve hates himself sometimes.)

He moves in with Bucky until the orphanage takes him in. Bucky joins him about a year later.

Then, the war comes. The war comes before he can even meet three of his soul mates. (That's actually pretty common during the war business.)

Of course, JB dies. He never meets TO, or NR. PC cries over a radio as he dies. HS finds out during an interview that Steve is shown later, (after he's collected enough of his bearings for it to be acceptable to crush him like that,) and has to leave, showing off a **Hello. - SR** on his wrist as he flees.

When he wakes up - and he wakes up shirtless and wearing weird pants that don't go all the way down his legs, made of weird mesh-y material and chafing his skin - he sees that there's more.

There's a mirror in the room he's woken up in - gray walls, tiled floors and a desk next to the mirror, holding a meal on it.

His chest was never impressive before he woke up, but now it is, all muscled and tatted.

HS's is faded, just an outline now, so before the files are given to him, he knows he won't be seeing Howard Stark anytime soon. Peggy's still alive. Bucky's mark had never faded, even after he'd fallen off the train, so it's no surprise to see it just as black as it had been the day it came to be on his skin.

The new ones, though - **Duh, man, c'mon in! - TS **(around his wrist and in the same style as Howard's, except gold instead of brown), **Holy Christ on a cracker!** ** - CB **(purple and showy, spanning his collarbone), **Are you really him? - BB** (bright green and in large, noticeable letters bordering one side of his spine), and **Want something to eat for the ride there, Captain? - VP**.

(And how many is that, anyway? Born with four, got one in the hospital, and woke up with another four. So, Steve concludes, he has the most marks ever, with a total of _nine_.)

Two days later, he's meeting CB and it's all because his life has always been so dramatically different.

* * *

Thor grows up in Asgard, watching Loki and Sif and Fandral and even _Hogun_ getting marks.

(_Yes_, marks happen in Asgard. It's basically a requirement for settling in the universe, having marks. _But_, you ask, _what about the markless?_ Thor asks himself this a lot. They are exceptions to the rule. Odin says they are special, they are awaiting their soul mate. Thor finds himself tiring of the platitudes with the speed of a bildgesnipe.)

Frigga shows her sons her own marks. Loki giggles and points down to the tiny runes written upon his arm, wrist to elbow.

Now, Thor is certain that he'd have one - even if it was platonic, and trust him, he wouldn't mind where others would - if the universe allowed familial marks. However, it doesn't, so he's a Blank.

It is infuriating.

He supposes that if he had marks like Loki - and _allfather almighty_, Thor envious of a _mark_! Of _Loki_! - he would be as arrogant as Loki is.

Loki, with his marks and his smugness and overwhelming ego, is still not destined to become prince. Thor's waiting for when it explodes in his face.

He's what would be seventeen to Midgardians when his first mark comes around. **Aw, you flatter me. It's a real honor for me, too. - SR** goes from his ankle to his knee, and he's never been happier. It's blue and it's in Midgardian English and it's written in a way that says the bond will be intimate. Not necessarily platonic, but also possibly platonic. It could be sexual (and he'd be into that, and _no_, it's _not_ because Asgardian teenagers are like Midgardian teenagers...) or it could be a close friendship. (There is a difference in Midgardian and Asgardian marks - Asgardian marks are much easier to figure out.)

Anyway, he goes running and whooping down the palace halls, he's so overjoyed. Loki rolls his eyes at Thor, but it's with a fondness that has slowly diminished since he was a mere babe.

Later, after showing his parents - he asks them what he might say to SR to start the friendship. They say that he might have complimented SR, saying it was an honor to work or be with SR - he lays in bed grinning to himself.

He's finally not a Blank!

For a while after, Thor almost expects this SR to just show up or maybe, the mark to jump off of his skin and dance. When it becomes clear that there's nothing more to the mark, Thor goes back to his everyday life as crown prince of a whole realm, but now he's excited at everything and is considering asking Heimdall to find this SR.

But, when he's what would be nineteen, he gets another mark. (He's tied with his brother, now, which is almost as exciting as the new soul mate.) Spanning his shoulders, in red cursive - also Midgardian English! - is **Let's compromise. I'm Natasha. - NR**.

Thor decides not to go to Heimdall, wanting to have a mystery in his life.

He's content with two - he'd been a Blank so long that one was enough, actually - but he gets more. (_Take that, Loki!_) He's surprised to find that his soul mates are all of Midgardian heritage, unlike Loki with his Asgardian and Jotun marks.

**What's Asgard like? - BB **(grassy green, handwritten in standard print, going down his left pointer finger),** Look at those muscles, fuck. I need those arms. Where can I buy them? - CB **(purple in color, block lettered - with little dots that twinkle like lights - and circling his neck, on his collar-bone),** Do you need an agent, because I could totally get you one. - TS **(gold and showy and over his ribs) and** Please be alive! - JF **(blue like the sky, written by a sloppy hand and over his chest).

And, well, he's happy with his soul mate markings, for a long time. He's hardly Blank.

Then, Loki happens. He explodes. On Thor's day, the day he is to be crowned King. Loki whispers to a loyal servant, and she tackles Thor with all the strength of a raging bull. Defending himself, he hits her, with Mjolnir. Not even that hard, either, it glances off of her and it pushes her away. Odin banishes him to Midgard with the purpose of "maturing your quick hand where violence is concerned." He gets hit by a van in New Mexico.

* * *

Natasha is born with two marks. One is **Compromise, Lady Natasha? - TO**. She's born Natalia, so when her father looks down at the giant, gray _English_ with a different name on her back, she's not the most confused.

The other is **I've been wondering what that meant since I was ten. - SR **and it's blue and cursive and goes from elbow to shoulder, on her right arm. There's no way to know how much older your soul mate is, not in the late Russian 1930's, but she is fairly positive that this soul mate is a decade older. It's odd, knowing such a thing.

Then, her life goes to shit. Men - _the_ men, the ones that took her from her parents, and vise versa, the ones she will kill herself - sneer that _those two mean nothing, not anymore_. Still, she holds onto hope that the names do mean something, that the two people - TO and SR - are out there somewhere, living a better life than her. She's not good at comforting and she knows a woman has to have a non-Platie.

Natasha isn't sure how long she's been alive - how long she's been killing people - when another one shows up. **Pleasure? Likewise, gorgeous. - TS **curls around her ankle in golden, chaste lettering.

The men assure her that she is ugly and only good in a fight. They say they're going to kill TS, SR and TO if they ever come in contact with them - they say they're going to make sure that TS never says those lies to such an ugly asset.

Still, Natasha bites the fingers that feed her - metaphorically, that is - and knows that TS is saying those words to her if she has to coax them out of the person with a knife and her skillset.

A year or so - she counts by people, mostly, not years, so she's not sure - later, she gets another one. **Either I kill you or I recruit you. It's your choice, either one. - CB**, spanning her arms in red and purple and business-like lettering.

SR has confused her since birth. TO has always seemed way-too mannered, even for the 1940's. TS flattered her, gave her new hope.

But CB is meant to kill her, and they're soul mates. (It's not actual lettering until she goes over to America. Until then, it was fingers. It was English, written in sign language. She wonders what exactly that means.)

The next one is **Hi, Miss Rushman. It's good to have you here. - VP**, going around the waist in black and muted pink, written like a true professional.

Whoever VP is, she's clearly part of a job.

The Earthy green **Sorry, I wasn't watching were I was going. - BB **showed up after VP's, written at the top of her back, under her neck and over TO's.

**Goddamn, look at that rack! - DL **is the only mark she gets in America. It's bright and colored like a rainbow and it looks anything but what it means. It's around her wrist, which is just embarrassing.

DL had better not be her non-Platie, or people will die.

It's flattering, though.

* * *

Bruce's father hated that Bruce had six marks, from birth no less.

Bruce knows it's not because **Yeah, I am. It's good to meet you. - SR** is on the curve of his ear, seen by everyone on his left. The mark is blue and black and it's handwritten.

Bruce knows it's not the blatant, red and brown and showy **What do I have to be scared about? You? Not happening. - TS **on his upper shoulder, also left.

Bruce knows it's not the green and purple **You're Bruce? Yeah, hey. Watch this! - CB** around his wrists. Yeah, it showed up twice, but Bruce only counts them as one.

Bruce knows it's not the **No problem, Bruce. - NR **on his right ring finger, in black manuscript.

Bruce _knows_ it's not the **It is like no other in the universe. - TO** (which gets him into science, thank _god_ for being younger than TO), which is on his stomach in gray block letters, with weird squiggly lines elongating from several letters.

Bruce even knows that it's not the **Are you Dr. Banner? - BR **that happens to be in pink and yellow, on his _left_ ring finger. (And thank you BR, you have only made Bruce want to get into science more.)

He knows it's that he has _six marks_, compared to his father's own zero. Or, maybe, it's because his father hates him. The feeling is mostly mutual.

(Bruce wants to hate his father - but it's hard to, even though he'd been neglected and beat.)

He knows that six marks make him different - there are very few people ever born with more than four - and well, he thinks it's a blessing. He's got a bad home life, but he's got soul mates leaking out of his ears, which is way better than anything he could ask for, really.

Okay, maybe not. Bruce would ask for his mother to not be hit all the time, but it's a close second.

* * *

**You will have to work for them! - TO** is Clint's first of three marks, extending in dark blue letters from wrist to elbow.

**That's what one of my new marks says. - SR **is the second one, lining his spine in a dark-white-but-not-gray color.

**Recruit me. - NR **is the third one, green in color and covering each finger on his right hand, including his thumb.

He hides the marks as best as he can from everyone - Barney, Momma, Baba, that kid down the street, Mrs. Who-Cares, everyone. Momma finds the ones on his fingers, and tells him that whoever NR is, _they is so goddamn important and Clinton, if you don't treat them like they are, I will fuckin' kill you_.

Later, he realizes that parents aren't supposed to threaten their children, but right then, it's normal.

Baba finds the one from TO and makes Clint "work for them" at every chance he got.

Baba and Momma get in a car wreck - he and Barney are in the backseat, and neither are wearing seatbelts. Clint almost goes through the windshield. Barney actually does, though.

Clint and Barney are herded into a black car a few days after Barney gets okay. They're taken to an orphanage - which leads to boy's homes and foster parents who are one extremity or the other. Barney tells him that he can protect Clint from a particularly abusive foster-mother - and they find a circus to go live with, because Clint's only six and he doesn't understand that Barney's lying yet.

The Strongman finds the one from SR, years later, and tells Clint he's lucky to have three (everyone knows that he has three because Barney won't shut the fuck up about how his little shit of a brother is a freaking Used Canvas - which is really unoriginal, considering the whole Blank Canvas thing). Clint thought the older man would have hit him. It's surprising that that's even surprising when he just smiles at Clint and walks away.

**No! Stop! Oh my- are you alright? - BB** is the next one, easily hidden on his waist and in black letters, no less. It's flattering. Barney finds out. He beats the shit out of Clint, but Clint's got nobody else, so he stays. He's twelve.

**What'd I do to you, man? - TS **comes when he's fourteen and nursing a black eye, given to him by Bullseye, the guy who trained him. It's brown and it's small and it's around his ankle - so Clint wears the highest socks he can find.

Clint holds the marks tight to himself. When he wakes up in a closet in a hospital in Indiana when he's sixteen - and _good god, ten_ years - and he's shirtless, he freaks out and punches a janitor's jaw.

He spends time as a Merc - people know of him as either Hawkeye or Mark's. Clint hates Mark's, so when SHIELD opens a door for him, as he steps through it, he tells them to call him "Hawkeye."


	2. Steve and Nat, Clint and Tony

Steve's been locked in the room for a day now; he's getting to the point where he has so much to think about and so much time to think about it all, that his brain is awaiting its imminent explosion.

And what _doesn't_ he have to think about? He's in the future; he knows because he can hear the cars honking and he saw them through the window that they let him look through for a grand total of five minutes. He's got way more soul mates - not to mention TO and NR, whoever they may be. He's alone in a world so far ahead of him, he's not even a speck on the horizon.

Steve's expecting a visitor. He's not sure what's possessed him to do it, to expect _anyone_ to visit _him_ - but he does anyway.

He's not expecting the man with dark blond hair and wrinkles and scars and a billion-watt smile at all.

"Holy Christ on a cracker!" The man - he must be CB, that's what the mark signed CB says - says after several moments spent just staring at each other. "It's you, it's _you_-"

"That's what one of my new marks says," Steve observes while the man has a meltdown. (Really, Steve's not that special. Though, he has been missing for some time, so maybe it _is_ a big deal.)

CB's eyes widen. "SR? Steve Rogers? Oh - my - _god_!" The last part is quiet, under the other man's breath.

"Are you alright?" Steve asks, because it kind of looks like the man is on his way to hyperventilating. "Sir?"

CB shakes himself, not unlike a dog, and puts his hand forward. "Yeah, I'm good. Not sir, by the way. I'm Clint Barton, or Hawkeye, either one. And you're Captain America."

Steve shrugs. "Yeah, I guess. Steve Rogers."

Clint grins. Then - "I thought you only had five marks?"

He shrugs again. "I woke up with one faded and quite a few more of 'em..."

"Can I see them? They probably have to be added to your medical file, and not lying, I want to be able to say I saw Captain America's marks."

"Sure." Steve relents, because he knows that it has to be done, and this guy is supposedly his soul mate.

"Coulson is going to be _so_ jealous," Clint says, as an afterthought and more to himself than to Steve.

After that, there's some, but not much, talk. Clint makes note about the faded one - "I'm sorry, man. Happened to a few people I know." - and the old ones.

"What's this one mean?" He asks, pointing to the black on in Irish, signed JB.

"Means 'Those boys rough up everyone. You alright?'."

"Hmm," Clint hums before getting back to work.

"I think I know the one who said this one," he says, pointing to Steve's palm. Steve shrugs and looks away, infinitely embarrassed.

Then - "that's what I said. I said that and you said what my mark says. We're soul mates, then."

Clint looks excited, looks like he's never met one of his soul mates - which_ can't_ be true - and looks so _happy_, that it's lifting Steve's sour mood.

"I guess we are, yeah."

* * *

Natasha's been sitting in a stupid meeting for what feels like days, where it's only been hours.

Honestly, she's not sure what this is even for, unless it's been three and a half hours of "Captain America is back and if you aren't nice, I will shove your own head up your _ass_!" Obviously, not in those exact words - and it's mostly pointed at Tony and her, anyway.

Tony's glowering at the tall blond and Thor's just beaming. Clint's bouncing in his seat - he is such a child sometimes - and Bruce is looking calm. Steve - Captain America, no scoffing - is looking complacent and obliging to Clint, who must be a decade and a half older.

(She knows for a fact that only Steve and Clint have met prior to this meeting, the first in a long line of Avengers related de-briefings. That's not to say that she hasn't met Clint, from years of working together or Tony, from an undercover mission involving his involvement with the Avengers.)

Fury drones on, even though the only one who seems to be listening is Coulson. (Well, actually, Thor's listening for sure. His eyes keep darting back to Fury. And... Steve! He's listening, his ears are pricked.)

Natasha looks around again. She only knows Bruce, Thor and Steve from their files, which means Bruce is a runaway, Steve is a super soldier and Thor's got a brother who has a child - which is an eight-legged horse, thank you very much.

Clint is beaming - he'd already called her and told her that _Captain Fucking America_ is his soul mate, holy _shit_ - and Tony's glaring - glowering, just like earlier - at everyone.

Thor's broad shoulders are twisting as he looks around himself and Bruce is slumped in his seat, looking particularly rumpled.

Several more painful hours of de-briefings behind her, and Natasha is waiting for Steve. She'd glared Clint into a pout and he'd left, saying to the legend that he had somewhere top-secret to be. Steve had rolled his eyes - and wow, he and Thor both have unfairly blue eyes - but smiled and nodded the guy off.

For someone who lost everything and everyone, he's really upbeat.

Or, he's humoring Clint with a mask.

Sigh.

Before she can say anything, but after Steve stands up, Coulson is at Steve's side. Natasha decides she's not going to lip read or otherwise intrude on the privacy of the conversation, and looks at her nails.

After a few minutes, Nat looks up, and Steve's walking towards her, Coulson nowhere to be found. (Well, he left through the back door, the one that leads to Fury's bunk and housing arrangements, the one that she's no supposed to know about.)

"Did he fanboy?" comes out of her mouth unbidden, and he freezes.

He's made himself out to be a stupid, naive soldier so far - it had disgusted Tony to his bones, she could tell - but the look he gives her is four parts strategist and tactician and zero parts stupidity.

Finally, he says "I've been wondering what that meant since I was ten."

The realization that this man is her soulmate - SR must stand for Steve Rogers - hits her right in the arm, over his mark. She slides a mask on, though, one that says she's calm and cool and collected. "Where are you headed?"

He seems to realize she's not wanting to talk about the blantant fact that they're soul mates. He shrugs. "Back to my room, I guess. You don't have to walk me," he says - and it's because she is shooting off 'I want to be alone' vibes, she's sure.

Nat nods thankfully and doesn't say another word.

If she had known that Captain Ameica was her soul mate when she was a kid, killing paople and wanting her mates to do _something-!_

_Oh_, she thinks. Steve was under ice, Thor was in Asgard, and Tony's mark came early. They _couldn't_ have come, they couldn't have saved her. (Tony had only been a baby, anyway, and Howard didn't seem the type to save poor, little Russian girls.) The resentment that had started to build up after fifteen years of being KGB's puppet cleared almost all the way.

Dammit.

* * *

It was a downpour. A fucking downpour. It was a torrential monsoon outside.

It was a good thing Tony'd made it home already because he didn't want to be stuck out in _that_.

He'd hightailed it out of the fucking torture-by-way-of-mouth - and not the good kind - and hauled ass out to his tower as fast as he could when he wasn't in the suit.

(Tony likes to fucking cuss, by the way. Sometimes, the things he said made Natasha crack a smile and Tony was glad she was a non-platie - _he thinks!_ god, soul mates are so _confusing_ - because if he can't make a person laugh, least of all smile, they can't be together.)

Honestly, Tony was only going along with the whole Avengers thing because _Bruce Goddamn Banner_ was going to be living with him and he didn't want Odin beating his ass for not housing Thor.

But Captain America._ Ugh_. His past, rolled into one, disappointed muscle mass.

Are Bruce's not living in a shit-hole and the mighty fist of Asgardian gods all that important? No, not if he has to live with Captain America.

Okay, so he's being over dramatic. Sue him.

Pepper's not there to make him see her point and Natasha's gone AWOL and Rhodey's _somewhere unreachable_, so he's alone and yeah.

In the lab - okay, _one of_ the labs, he loves being rich - Tony's destroying stuff (it kind of looks like a toaster? a blender, maybe?), when Jarvis tells him that he's got a visitor. He irrationally hopes it's Natasha, Bruce or even Clint, because the guy seems cool and in great need of ADHD meds, just like himself.

Nope. It's Captain America, the stupid ass soldier - Dad always said Cap was super smart, but obviously, his father was delusional.

"I know you don't like me," he says and okay, Tony can see where the man's intuitive, because these are the first words passed between them, "but I need somewhere to stay." He's soaking wet, and Tony realizes that he probably drove that old clunker motorcycle here.

But.

That's what one of his marks says. Tony's vowed to himself when he was six years old and could read the mark that he'd let the man, SR, in, no matter what.

He takes a deep breath and plasters a smile on his face. "Duh, man," he jests, acting like Cap is a good friend, "c'mon in!"

The other, older - wait, older? or younger? - man blinks once and then he tilts his head. Tony steps away from the doors, sweeping a hand out behind him. "Well?" His voice is a tad sharper than is needed, sure, but whatever. He's about to give the guy a guest room and food, so no complaining.

"Are we soul mates?" Captain America asks after stepping into the elevator.

Tony shrugs, and thinks, _god, I hope not_, even though it's obvious they are. Tony can see the mark on Cap's wrist.


	3. Darcy Lewis

Darcy wasn't sure what to make of her marks.

Seriously! What even _were_ they.

She'd had most of them her whole life - just one came after her birth, and the person died before they could even meet or find out if they were male or female or French.

Darcy thinks she's hilarious.

(Also, she gets the stories of people who's mate's died, even if she never met that particular soul mate. It sucks to lose one, especially if you never met them, because there's a oppurtunity to have someone, just gone, out the window, down the toilet, whatever you want to say.)

**People are in danger, you will get your iPod back when that's no longer the case. - PC** is on her stomach, in standard black Times New Roman.

Bye bye bikinis. Also, boring.

(And, 1995 her asks, what the actual living fuck is an _iPod_?)

She ponders over the one from PC a lot, because she has no freaking clue as to what the danger is (she'd reported it to the local police, because that was what is expected of marks like that, and they'd thanked her and she'd went on her way) and it feels like it's eating her alive.

Did you know that she rambles a lot? She does, people think it's annoying, but she doesn't care.

Her father was worried about whoever PC was - said that PC seemed super mature and that even if the guy(?) _was_ her soul mate, _no_.

**Yeah, I am. You're Darcy, the lab grunt, right? - TS **is around her ankle in bright, bright red. Darcy's almost proud of that one, so she doesn't mind wearing flip-flops, ankle hight sock, sandals or flats.

The only mark she has that doesn't have initials says **Yours are nice, too.** It's green, like the earth and it's shaky, but Darcy doesn't care.

There's a bruise on her back.

It has been there since birth and it won't leave, no matter what she or a doctor or other does. Sometimes, it lessens, sometimes (more often), it's dark and big and starts to hurt (it usually doesn't, which is just confusing - also, it makes her feel like she's high, which is _just confusing_, too). **JB** skirts it, over and over again, making a huge crop circle on her back, only made of bruises and dark brown ink.

Bye bye bikinis.

Eventually, a doctor tells her it's a mark. Darcy had kind of figured, but still. A _bruise_? How? What? When (that's always been the question)? Who?_ How_?

The nearest bookstore sells books about weird mark stories and also a book about what marks could mean, if you're into possibly jeopardizing your soul mate cred.

Some people say the bruise could mean their mate first talks to them in a language they don't understand or in sign language. There are stories of people with hickies their whole lives.

Maybe this soul mate, JB, hurts her when they first meet?

God, she hopes not.

(_Sometimes_, the book tells her, _when a mark or it's initials are repeated several times, it can signify a non-platonic relationship between the mates._)

Then, there's the **Hi! You're the new guy, right? Will you please come put your hand right here, thanks. - JF** that had come with birth like the others, black and blue and girly, right over her ribs, and above PC's.

Then, it changed colors. It changed like the sunset and sunrise, and it looked like stars. Darcy was at least 99% sure marks weren't supposed to do that, and it freaked her the fuck out so much, the next-door-neighbors had an all out fight-to-the-death-with-the-not-real-attackers-next-door-holy-_shit_.

(They came over, weilding a baseball bat, wanting to know what the fuck happened.)

(She's a screamer; it happens.)

So.

She spent many-a night going over her marks in her head, comparing them to her sister's and her's brother's and her cousins'. A bruise. A danger. A "new."

Life was easy for Darcy, as you can probably tell.

(Her mother and father had Jake, Marie and then her. Both of her parents had siblings, and they had lots of kids, thus, lots of cousins. Darcy was the only cousin to have a bruise, but two of her cousins had inherited the "no mark disease" from their parents.)

* * *

College is a bitch, a royal one, and it makes Darcy's life terrible.

_How?_, you ask.

Well, she needs six credits to graduate in a few months, and to get those credits, she either has to go live in Michigan for months, or in New Mexico for months.

She chooses New Mexico, obviously. She expected heat and boring and science! and the like, not meeting her soul mate.

Jane Foster's first words to Darcy are "hi! You're the new guy, right? Will you please come put your hand _right here_, thanks."

Jane has to ask again, because Darcy freezes and gasps like a fish.

"Holy shit," she says slowly. "You're my freaking soul mate!"

And that's the staoy of how Darcy Lewis nearly cried in joy because she had some mousy lady as a soul mate.

PC comes a month and a half later, as Thor is flipping out, with big, black vans that are hauling her and Jane and Erik's shit (okay, just Jane and Erik's shit) to where the hell ever. She says, "you took my iPod! I want my iPod!"

The jack-booted thug in the nice suit tilts his head, a flash of surprise in his eyes that Darcy doesn't understand. "People are in danger," he says like it's obvious. "You will get your iPod back when that is no longer the case."

That's when she does understand, because this forty fucking year old man is her soul mate.

Awkward.

A lot of shit happens after that, Thor leaving after the Destroyer, the Avengers and the Battle, her and Jane getting on a plane and going to her college for graduation and then, going to New York and staying with the Avengers.

No one's really comfortable with each other, not yet, but when marks do show, they all seem to be each others.

Her frist words to Tony Stark, as he walks around his kitchen, are "woah! You're fucking Tony Stark!"

He hadn't been looking at her until she was done mortifying herself. He spun around, a glare on his face, until he saw the girl who he didn't know. "Yeah, I am." He says eventually, "you're Darcy, the lab grunt, right?"

She nearly pisses herself and Tony looks half-way there, as it is. "Yeah, yeah, hi. I'm Darcy, the lab... _grunt_? What does that mean?"

"You don't know?" Tony asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"No, I don't know. Why do you think I'm asking? I'm not a fact-checker, I'm a dunce."

Tony grins. "You're gonna fit in great here, Grunt."

* * *

When Darcy finally meets JB, she does get hurt, and it's a nightmare.

She's just trying to sit on a bench and organize a meeting between the Four and the Avengers, but _noooooo_, she just has to be in the way of a fucking attack.

By that point, Steve and Natasha have uncovered HYDRA, and of the people living in the tower (jesus _christ_, there are so many _people_), there's all of the Avengers, Betty Ross, her and Jane, a room for Erik if he ever showed up, a room for Rhodey, whenever he came around, Maria Hill, Sam Wilson and Pepper Fucking Potts.

Oh, and the room for the murderer, can't forget that one.

They've all been briefed on the Winter Soldier, so she knows he looks like James "Bucky" Barnes, the hottest fucking Commando ever, and that he's got a metal arm.

Darcy's in the park, on a bench next to a lady with a kid, when HYDRA (she thinks) shows up and starts flooding everywhere.

They're after a guy with a... metal arm and a face that should be worth millions. Ushering the lady and her son to the nearest bathroom ("get down and stay there, don't come out until you hear police sirens and there's no more pounding boots, and you'll be fine"), Darcy isn't sure what to do. Call Steve? Leave? Scream and cry with the two in the bathroom or the eople fleeing and running like chickens?

The desicion is made for her, because one of the goons looks at her, and muct recognize her or some shit, because he goes into full on fucking attack mode in seconds.

Something hits her in the side - there's pain right where her bruise is, and it acually hurts enough for her to want to squirm, but she can't because - and it turns out to be that murderer that she is supposed to live down the hall from.

"Stay down," he demands of her, and really, she has no objections, so she nods and doesn't move.

From what she can tell from her spot behind the bathroom, HYDRA is fire-boming the shit out of the poor park.

Bucky comes back, eventually, and she kisses him on the cheek in a job well done.

(Turns out, since birth, he'd had a bruise on his cheek in the shape of a mouth. Her mouth. Sweet.)


	4. Loki, Bucky, Phil, Wade, and Grant

**Hey, this one is shorter... I kinda ran out of ideas. If you have any, I'm taking them. (I'm also saying pairings again, because I have some I need to write and might as well, ya know?)**

* * *

Bucky didn't actually have any marks, other than a bruise and a cut and a scar that encompassed his right shoulder. He wasn't sure what they were, or why the wouldn't leave.

Loki had three, all in different languages (and one of them he had hidden from Thor for most of his life, it seemed).

Bucky found out that the cut was a mark when he was about eight years old, and pulling a big, burly boy off of a small, sickly thin one. This was after the burly one punched him so he could get back to his fight.

Loki met the one who spoke Asgardian when he was what would be ten, in Midgardian years. She liked him for him, not Thor.

Bucky meets The Scar, as he calls it, after he's just fallen down a mountain and his arm was halfway mauled. He forgets.

Loki meets the one that speaks in Jotun when Thor has been exiled and Odin is being an awful father. He's not sure what to make of her, not even when she bares him children.

Bucky meets the bruise years upon years later, when he's tailing her because she is in pictures with the lady who's in pictures with the man, who is in pictures with The Star Man.

Loki meets the one who speaks Midgardian English when Thor brings him on the planet. She is drinking milk out of a bowl like a feline, only she moved the bowl, not her head. She looks ridiculous.

* * *

Loki had envied Thor for many, many things. Marks had never been one of them.

Knowing how much Thor had wanted a mark from day one, Loki had hidden his third mark. As soon as he realized his boasting was harmful, he'd put the last mark on lockdown.

Nobody but he knew of it.

Thor should be grateful to have him as a brother.

And yet, no one seemed to notice all he did for them.

All except for Sigyn.

* * *

Bucky was happy to sit with Steve. Steve always seemed to think that he didn't want to relax with his friend, but he did.

Bucky didn't realize that it would ever be the other way around, him wanting to be far, far away from even the thought of annoying Steve.

Bucky didn't know how to express that he was worried that Steve would run him off, even though when they were young, Steve always managed to make the words come out.

* * *

Since birth, Phillip J. Coulson had exactly four marks. They're rather concerning to his young self.

CB says to him, **If you're here to help me, I'd really rather you not, okay? I know what I'm jail for, and I'll take the chair. **It's orange in color, and it spins around his leg.

TS says to him, **Wow, you are so boring, you must be able to go anywhere and just blend in, and nobody could describe you, huh? **Electric blue letters, right on his palm.

NF says to him **Man, this job is crazy shit. Once you go insane, you're never going back! **If the words themselves didn't put him off, the black letters and imposing font definitely did.

SR says to him, **No, no, I get. Don't worry, I get like that too, just not... around myself. **It's black, too, and confusing to him, but he doesn't think too much about it until he's meeting Captain Freaking America.

* * *

Wade Wilson had wanted Logan, the hot piece of Canadian ass, to be his soul mate the time they worked together.

Alas, said hot piece of ass had one mark and it wasn't him.

Wade didn't actually _have_ any marks, or at least he didn't think so.

Then, he met Spiderman, and the exact words the other guy - it has to be a guy, right? I mean, c'mon, nobody is _that_ flat-chested - said imprinted themselves onto his shoulder, two days after they were said. **Hey! That one was mine! C'mon, man! - PP**

But PP though? _God_, it was so much better than Logan's ass. Well, it almost was, okay? Can't blame a guy when he's been on a dry spell for just _months_.

Anyway.

Wade looked into it... and guess what? PP is some teenaged photographer.

Eh. It coulda been Victor's hairy ass.

* * *

Grant Ward had only one mark - and he hadn't thought about it since he was just a kid, listening to his mother and father fight senselessly about nothing in particular.

It says, **Woah, are you protective? Please tell me you are. **and there's no initials. It spans his back in silver lettering. It came when his father was beating him.

John says, after he's killed his father and ran from his mother and brother, after he finds himself in the woods because he's an escaped convict, that whoever says that doesn't care about him. John says he knows everything about marks, even though Grant never sees any of John's and knows that whatever-slash-whoever made marks has given no one knowledge of them.

Grant doesn't pay much mind to it, even after John found it and gave him a lecture.

Then, he goes to SHIELD, or HYDRA as it is behind closed doors, and gets put on Coulson's team.

Then, he meets Skye and everything is different.

(So what if he starts dropping hints that something's not right?)

(And, he gets another mark. It's on his upper thigh, in bright, eletric blue. It says, **Welcome to the team, I'm Leo, this is Jemma, but most people call us Fitzsimmons. - LF**)


End file.
